This case study examines how Mission Cocktails co-founders Amit Singh and Marcin Malyszko built a premium ready-to-drink cocktail brand from scratch with no prior industry experience by combining real ingredients, hard work, and a commitment to donating 5% of all revenues to local food banks.
From Dog Walks to Mission Partners
Mission Cocktails began with an unlikely friendship. Amit Singh and Marcin Malyszko met at a charity event in their California neighborhood, but didn’t actually introduce themselves. A week later, Malyszko spotted Singh and struck up a conversation, discovering they lived a block apart.
“Despite a 20-year age gap, we became best friends very early on,” Malyszko explained. “Humble upbringings, values, morals, character, passions, vision—everything about how we operated as individuals just related on so many levels.”
Their friendship deepened over dog walks with cocktails in hand, frequent visits to restaurants and speakeasies, and a shared appreciation for quality drinks. When COVID-19 hit and forced bars to close, the two friends attempted to recreate their favorite cocktails at home using YouTube recipes.
“Our wives hated all the mess, our drinks sucked, and we were disappointed,” Malyszko recalled. They turned to canned and bottled cocktails instead, ultimately trying 60 to 70 different RTD products during the pandemic.
After sampling expensive bottled cocktails that failed to deliver on quality, the friends had a late-night epiphany: “There have to be other people who want something that tastes like it came out of a shaker, a real cocktail that uses real juice.”
They decided to build a mission-driven business. Mission Cocktails was founded with a commitment to donate 5% of all revenues (not just profits) to local food banks.
“If it were just a passion project, just something we wanted to do, we wouldn’t have that same passion,” Singh explained. “For us, it’s that give back that kept us going every single day.”
Starting From Zero Industry Knowledge
The co-founders knew nothing about spirits procurement, bottling, distribution models, or licensing. Their first research tool was remarkably simple.
“Before we even knew about Park Street University, we found this amazing feature called Google,” Singh said. “We literally just Googled everything. We didn’t even know the word distillery—we searched ‘what factory makes alcohol?'”
They spent weekends in their kitchens perfecting five cocktail recipes to their personal taste, assuming they could simply hand these recipes to a distillery for commercialization.
When they approached distilleries, the reality check was immediate. Producers told them that what they wanted to do was impossible because commercial production couldn’t use fresh lime juice the way home bartenders do.
“They said, ‘You’ve got to go to a flavor house,'” Singh recalled. “We were Googling in these meetings, ‘What’s a flavor house?'”
Most distilleries insisted they use artificial flavors and concentrates. However, Singh and Malyszko had established two non-negotiable principles: they would never deviate from their 5% revenue donation, and they would only serve drinks they were proud to offer to friends, using real, California-sourced ingredients.
It took two and a half years to find the right partners and develop the right processes. The result was a product line featuring real juice, including six limes in every bottle of their Margarita, and a handmade orange liqueur crafted with California oranges for their Cadillac version.
“If we did know about flavor houses, we’d be making water, food coloring, generic alcohol, and flavor droplets,” Malyszko noted. “We’d be at an entirely different product than we are today.”
Their first production run consisted of just 600 bottles. Friends loved the product, but Singh and Malyszko knew they needed objective validation. They submitted their cocktails to the San Francisco International Wine and Spirits Competition and won double gold.
The industry recognition gave them confidence to take their business seriously. They worked out the bottle economics and realized every bottle sold could fund one meal for families in need. Today, two years after launch, Mission Cocktails has funded over 100,000 meals.
Navigating Distribution Without a Roadmap
Not knowing the industry proved both a challenge and an advantage. Singh and Malyszko initially tried to avoid distributors entirely after reading “horror stories” on LinkedIn about the difficulty of getting attention in large portfolios.
Reality intervened when they began cold-calling CEOs of grocery chains. “They were like, ‘You don’t work with my six distributors, you’re never getting in my stores,'” Malyszko explained. “We realized the business we wanted to be in required a distributor.”
Their DIY approach did create early momentum. They convinced independent liquor stores to allow them to conduct tastings during busy periods. “I personally said I would buy back any inventory that didn’t sell,” Malyszko recalled. “It was just that confidence.” The tastings were successful, creating demand that began to attract the attention of retailers.
Strategic Partnership with Park Street
Park Street became crucial to Mission Cocktails’ growth strategy, providing the operational infrastructure they needed while they focused on sales and product quality.
“Park Street was huge for us,” Singh said. “We went from aggressively looking for a distributor to aggressively not looking for a distributor. Now we had the patience to look and take our time for that next level.”
The platform enabled them to expand their geographic footprint beyond what they could handle with their Sprinter van, opening accounts in Ventura, West Hollywood, and other areas they couldn’t efficiently service on their own.
Their first major retail wins came through this model. They secured placement at Total Wine, followed by BevMo, which started in Orange County and expanded. As Mission Cocktails proved its retail performance, larger distributors took notice. The co-founders deliberately pursued beer distributors rather than traditional spirits wholesalers.
Their spirit-based product naturally belonged in cold boxes, where beer distributors excel. After careful evaluation, they partnered with Reyes Holdings, the largest beer distributor in North America, which had recently partnered with Tito’s Handmade Vodka in the spirits category.
“They really took a chance on us,” Malyszko said. “Being a tiny portfolio addition versus what they carry, but they’ve been fantastic.”
With Park Street continuing to support their warehousing and compliance needs as they scale with Reyes, Mission Cocktails exemplifies how brands can “grow up with Park Street” rather than outgrowing partnerships as they expand. Park Street helps brands maintain operational efficiency while focusing on what they do best: making exceptional cocktails and feeding families in need.
Retail Success and National Expansion
Mission Cocktails’ retail performance has exceeded expectations. Nielsen data for 2024 showed the brand ranking fifth among RTD cocktails in the 375ml format in California, which was particularly impressive given that they only entered major chains like Whole Foods, Gelson’s, and Pavilions in Q4, so the data doesn’t reflect a full 12 months. In May of 2025, Mission Cocktails launched a nationwide expansion with Total Wine & More, spanning over 240 spirits retail locations.
While Mission Cocktails focused primarily on retail, on-premise opportunities emerged organically. After serving as the exclusive alcohol provider at a charity event, they received their first hotel account.
Additional hotel wins followed. A major Hyatt in Orange County created Margarita and Mai Tai slushies using Mission’s bottles, which became the number-one selling and most profitable item on their pool menu. Ritz-Carlton locations now use the cocktails for special events with 300 to 500 attendees.
Advice for Aspiring Founders
For entrepreneurs considering the beverage alcohol industry, Singh and Malyszko offered hard-earned wisdom:
“If you’re not 1,000% convinced that you want to do this, then don’t do it,” Singh advised. “You will want to quit a thousand times. If you just think this will be cool, you’re not going to have the grit and hustle to see it through.”
Malyszko emphasized resourcefulness: “So many people say they don’t have the funding or knowledge or connections. Google can give you a lot of answers. Go to conferences—people are incredibly helpful. We went to our first trade show with a Photoshop image on a Listerine bottle, which had no liquid yet, and people were kind and offered help.”
Their final piece of advice centered on the importance of mission: “If it were just making a widget, we wouldn’t have that same passion,” Singh reflected. “When you can marry passion and purpose together, amazing things really do happen.”